Mouse teeth help us refine humanity’s family tree

15 Mar 2016

Mouse studies conducted at the University of Helsinki have generated a significant tool for studying human beginnings.

An international group of researchers has developed a model enabling them to predict the size of teeth in a row of teeth based on a single tooth. This model is a quantitative tool for palaeoanthropologists who are piecing together the evolutionary path of humans, often from isolated fossil teeth.

The model now published in Nature stems from a study published eight years ago on the development of mouse teeth, conducted at the University of Helsinki’s Institute of Biotechnology under Academy Professor Jukka Jernvall. Jernvall is the director of the Academy of Finland’s Centre of Excellence in Experimental and Computational Developmental Biology Research.